Knuckle Cracker

This topic is for discussion of map #7753: Doodle-3b (CSM + Magnetar)
(http://knucklecracker.com/creeperworld3/queryMaps.php?query=thumbnailid&id=7753)

Author: Shatterstep
Size: 144x144

Desc:
Alternate version. No upgrading emitters with power. Appropriate for both casual and advanced. Details about units on the forum. Stacked under command: - Reactor - Terp - Collector - Relay Control+Shift+H to toggle the stargate display Control+R to toggle display of symbols over stargates for color-challenged eyesight. Comments in forum if you prefer not having to do all the upgrading. #CSM #Magnetar #GoodStart #BravoYum234 #BravoConucanis #BravoKajacx #BravoRegallion #BravoVirgil

This is an alternate version of Doodle-3. I wondered if the map might be more fun without having to upgrade every freaking emitter so I created this variant. Should also eliminate all the lag the upgrading caused.

CHANGES

• Removed emitter upgrading - means no lag and less micromanagement
• First bomb factory earned sooner
• Additional spore chargers
• Minor rework of terrain and stargates
• Minor rework of stargate rewards
• Strengthened magnetar. The unit still isn't used that well, alas. Maybe on some other map I'll put it to better use.

Here are some hints and unit info for the map.

TOWER CHIPS

• Creeper Variator Chip - Reduces the amount of enemy creeper output. Cycles output between 20% to 100% (normal) over a 1 minute period.
• AC Variator Chip - Enhances the output of your emitters. Cycles output between 100% (normal) to 200% (double) over a 1 minute period. Awesome near cyan  (light blue) emitters which output AC twice as fast.
• Annihilator Chip - Annihilates creeper.

Find a good spot for the AC Variator chip early. Move the Creeper Variator and Annihilator chips around as you conquer the map.

UNITS

• Spore Chargers - They look like red puff balls. Linking these to your network ups the power of your AC spores. They can make a surprising difference early to mid game.
• Armored Emitters - They empower enemy emitters in their area of influence by x2 or x3. Mouse over to see details. Once conquered they double the power of all friendly emitters in their area of influence.
  Spoiler

  Location - The highest priority armored emitter is to the right of command, near the #1 stargate.
  Tactics - If you have the Annihilator, Creeper Variator, and AC Variator tower chips it shouldn't be too hard to take early. You shouldn't need to bring down the walls near the #1 gate beforehand. If you do, remember that game saving is your friend.
  Payoff - The conquered armored emitter doubles power, the AC Variator tower chip boosts output (cycling from normal to double power over a 1 minute period), and the high concentration of cyan (light blue) AC emitters put out enormous amounts of AC. Combined, the output will cycle between x2 to x4 power over 1 minute. Make sure to drop the wall between the conquered area and the #1 stargate. The mobile #1 stargate linker becomes awesomely powerful.

  [close]

MISC INFO

• Stargate Flood Levels - Moving clockwise around command node yellow stargates are lowest and red stargates are highest (and scary, 1200 emitters in red stargate area).
• Initial Stargates to Block -
  Spoiler

  • Red stargate in the upper left-most of map, above the armored emitter with the arrow flow gates. This stargate is vital to block from the start.
  • White stargate between the two slumbering emitters with red backgrounds that will wake in 333 seconds with 710 creeper. It is on the left side of map, below the lone stargate blocker. Just needs to be blocked before they wake.
    If you want to be aggressive, block at the start so creeper doesn't build up from white gate network, then try to take the slumbering emitters before they wake using the #1 stargate linker. I usually just barely take them in time. Make sure to seal around the stargate so you can move the blocker elsewhere once you have the immediate area secured. If you can't take them before they wake, just leave it blocked until you have taken the white stargate network.
  • The last blocker can be used pretty much anywhere to fit your immediate needs.

  [close]
• Higher Elevation - Higher ground matters. Gates and emitters at a higher elevation have a lot more push. Any time you can take an area at higher elevation it will greatly help. Most of these areas are protected with flow arrows so you can safely take earlier.
• Stargate Network Rewards - As you clear stargate networks of creeper, check next to Command to collect your rewards.
• Emitter Output Frequency - Cyan and dark blue emitters output twice as fast at 500 milliseconds vs. 1000 milliseconds for all other emitters. This is why dark blue emitters are a pain and cyan ones are awesome.

SHORTCUT KEYS

Has to be unpaused to use.

• Control+Shift+H - Toggles display of stargate flood levels (shows in the upper-right of screen).
• Control+R - Toggles display of symbols over stargates. Useful for colorblind / color-challenged eyesight.

I just replayed the original Doodle-3, this one has so much less micro managing. I prefer this one. There is enough going on without having to make sure every emitter is upgrading as well.

cool, played both, and i think i followed the same path...

though i noticed some emiters were stronger, by the time i got there, i had enough gates to deal with the situation

i just have no idea how people did it in 20min haha

Quote from: Riskbreaker on September 30, 2019, 06:56:42 PM
i just have no idea how people did it in 20min haha

I have played the original version of this map so many times that it is pretty easy. Play any map more than once and your time will improve. Doesn't hurt that I'm an advanced player to boot.

Hats off to those who get even better times than me. Those who take multiple hours to pass the map confuse me. My guess is they may not have the familiarity with the CSM map types, which is why I try to put some hints on this page. I guess what matters most is if people are having fun.

This alternate version I only took an hour to make which was awesome. Riskbreaker, it was your suggestion on the original map which motivated me to make this alternate map. Hopefully it is enjoyable enough and different enough to not be considered just a duplicate. Personally I prefer this version because there isn't any lag and less micro managing. Maybe the micro bothers me more because I have played this map so many times, lol.

Quote from: Shatterstep on September 30, 2019, 07:43:44 PM
Those who take multiple hours to pass the map confuse me. My guess is they may not have the familiarity with the CSM map types, which is why I try to put some hints on this page.

I guess what matters most is if people are having fun.

I don't know about others, but I tried to play without using stargate connectors (colorful rings). Might be partial reason to my score. :P

Also I guess my strategy was far from optimal, but I enjoyed this map even then. :)

I can show some screenshots of my progress, if you are interested.

2 hours does seem a bit excessive. I saw some people with 11+ hours though on my other map, so that is what I had in mind when writing that comment. What matters most is that you enjoyed the map.

Here are some tips. One of the more important tactics is using the #1 stargate linker paired with the AC Variator and using the Frenzy bomb.

I attached screenshots of my early game. Not sure it helps. I numbered them in order. I should mention that I play very aggressively.

• 1 - Before start - I mark bad items to terp around so once creeper is cleared the terps automatically do their job. I also save to slot #1 so I can backtrack if I have a really bad start.
• 2 - Gate blockers placed
  
  
  
  • Red stargate - I never move this blocker until end of game.
  • Blue stargate - I initially keep it plugged so it doesn't flood area. After the first minute or two, I remove the blocker and use the #1 linker to take area. Terp around once you have firework chip and power nest.
  • White stargate - I initially keep it plugged so it doesn't flood area. After about 4 minutes (there is usually only 1 min left before emitters activate) I swap out the blocker for the #1 linker. Terp around white stargate once the sleeping gates activate and are pumping out AC.
• 3 - Freeing #1-stargate area - This is vital so your #1 stargate linker has power behind it.
• 4 - Freeing 2nd bomb factory - it is a little hard to tell in the screenshot, but I was using the #1 stargate linker to help take that area. I also removed some walls.
• 4b - 1-stargate  area closeup - Note that I have the AC Variator parked there too. And the mouse-over shows one of the cyan emitters outputting 2550 AC every .5 seconds. I used the frenzy bomb on it, plus it was getting boosted by the conquered armored emitter. Puts out insane amounts of AC :)

I wish I knew how to record a playthrough. Amusingly, I'm paused most of the time as I give commands and look around the map so I know which areas are vulnerable, so a video from me would likely be quite boring. I really wish I had Photoshop installed on this machine so I could annotate the image. Bah.

I wouldn't feel bad about long times play times. That just means there is some fun discovery as you pick up

Quote from: Shatterstep on October 01, 2019, 04:55:26 AM
2 hours does seem a bit excessive. What matters most is that you enjoyed the map though. The most important tool is the #1 stargate linker. I wish I knew how to record a playthrough. Amusingly, I'm paused most of the time as I give commands and look around the map so I know which areas are vulnerable, so a video from me would likely be quite boring.

I attached screenshots of my early game. Not sure it helps. I numbered them in order. I should mention that I play very aggressively.

• 1 - Before start - I mark terp areas so terps will auto build up once ground is free of creeper.
• 2 - Gate blockers placed - I use the #1 stargate linker early at the blue stargate. Note that I terp around it so I can move the blocker shortly after.
• 3 - Freeing 1-stargate area - This is vital so your #1 stargate linker has power behind it.
• 4 - Freeing 2nd bomb factory - it is a little hard to tell in the screenshot, but I was using the #1 stargate linker to help take that area. I also removed some walls.
• 4b - 1-stargate  area closeup - Note that I have the AC Variator parked there too. And the mouse-over shows one of the cyan emitters outputting 2550 AC every .5 seconds. I used the frenzy bomb on it, plus it was getting boosted by the conquered emitter. Puts out insane amounts of AC :)

I really wish I had Photoshop installed on this machine. Bah.

Neat, maybe I will try it again at some point. :) Thank you!

Quote from: Shatterstep on October 01, 2019, 04:55:26 AM
I wish I knew how to record a playthrough. Amusingly, I'm paused most of the time as I give commands and look around the map so I know which areas are vulnerable, so a video from me would likely be quite boring.

I just use OBS when I want to record gameplay, it's a free and very flexible video capture software. I also shared your concern about it being boring to see a lot of paused time. When I wanted to record a map, I did several rehearsal playthroughs and only finally recorded a real playthrough when I was super confident with all the moving parts and time windows.

That's incidentally one of the reasons I never made any videos of longer duration maps such as this one, though  ;D

Good info, Cornucanis. I'll have to give it a gander. No promises, of course. I don't have confidence in my playing while recording.

I tried doing a vid and it didn't turn out. Oh well.

Hmm. Yesterday at least two people gave a "1" rating for this map, dropping it from 9.18 to 8.83. You can tell based on the number of ratings and what it would take to get it to drop that much so quickly.

I know I shouldn't let it bother me but it does. Sort of kills motivation to make maps.

Quote from: Shatterstep on October 02, 2019, 02:33:14 AM
Yesterday at least two people gave a "1" rating for this map, dropping it from 9.18 to 8.83.

That's not even bad, hard maps usually get rated lower than easier ones: (check link for example of this)

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/369708437438988289/614773688348311553/Rating-CSM-141.jpg

This is a response to your previous comment.

"1" RATING IS FOR HORRIBLE

A "1" score is for basically a broken map or one laughably horrible.  Yum234's map #7676 wasn't a bad map, but it was unplayable unless you knew the trick at the start. (Which is why Yum234 released another without as rough a start.)

For kicks I played through my map again, but without using any of the stargate linkers. I did it in 26:30 (my time using linkers I was 16:59). Granted, I know the map inside and out, but my point is that there isn't a gimmick to finish the map in a specific way, nor is it a broken mess. Trying to play without the linkers was actually interesting, btw. If people take multiple hours, no big deal. Again, I'm familiar with the map inside and out. I did a lot of play testing :)

SUGGESTIONS

Ratings are a way for players to discover maps they might like, and to encourage map makers to create more of a map style. Rating something a "1" that clearly isn't a pile of shit looks more like sabotaging competition and/or being spiteful.

• Taste - If you don't like a map style don't rate them. If you hate Sleeper maps maybe let those that do enjoy them rate those maps so players can find the cool sleeper maps.
• Expectations - If the description says the map is hard, you can't knock the map points when it turns out to be hard.
• Novel Game Play - If the game has novel game play that has promise, but isn't quite there yet, you might want to consider rating slightly higher to encourage more of those maps to be made.

There is more. I'm just too frustrated to think straight.

RATINGS

1 to 4	Map is a broken mess and/or ridiculously simple. (Maybe they accidentally submitted?) Never rate a map this unless it seriously sucks.
5 to 6	Map is very boring, bland, and/or may have issues. This discourages more of these maps being made.
7 to 8	Map is mildly entertaining. You want to encourage more of these maps to be made.
9 to 10	Map is very entertaining and may have unusual gameplay. You would love more of these maps to be made.

rating system is a meaningless feature. people who dont like the style of the map, will rate it lower no matter how well the map is made.

the non stupid part of community will look at the map, know its not their style, and move on to the next.

but the stupid part will still play the maps, knowing they wont enjoy it and rate it low.

BTW: I have 3 to 5 fans who rate almost allways "1" for any my maps. Usually without playing...

Yeah, it's not at all uncommon to see a well design and generally well received map rated "1" for no apparent reason unfortunately. It's certainly discouraging and as such I won't pretend I wasn't discouraged by these trends when I was making maps. In this map's case, it was probably downrated by someone who isn't familiar with the custom game mode and instead of ignoring it or trying to start with an earlier map in the series they just rated it 1 instead. Complicated maps and difficult maps both tend to be rated lowly for these reasons regardless of how well designed they are. There have been a few discussions about possible improvements to the rating system to hopefully eliminate these issues in CW4, but none of them we've discussed have been foolproof so for now as far as I know the rating system isn't planned to change.

Quote9 to 10   Map is very entertaining and may have unusual gameplay. You would love more of these maps to be made.

To be perfectly fair, a map staying at a stable rating of 9+ was completely unheard of before yum started making CSMs. It had never happened before in nearly 6,000 maps until then. The standard before that was that around 8.3+ meant a solid, top tier map so as long as you can stay above roughly that area your map will definitely be among the higher rated ones. The problem is that said CSMs have since made it very difficult to find other maps when sorting by highest rated  :-\

Yum234, you may recall that I have bitched about this several times on discord when people have done that to your maps. I'm pretty good at figuring out what happened based on how much a score changed and the current number of reviews. I have seen other authors get "1" ratings as well. Seems unfair.

Shatterstep, I really like your maps - the CSM ones are great and I prefer not to micromanage with all the upgrading.

You'd asked about people who take multiple hours for these maps - I play on a computer that's about 15 years old which - in its day - was pretty cool (Core 2 Extreme, lol) but now it has a hard time running maps with a lot of stuff going on. So instead of being able to play maps at 4x speed or faster, I'm doing well to play these at 2x speed. Usually 1x speed. And I'm just too busy to sit and watch stuff slowly happen, so I will usually just let it run while I do other stuff and pop in about every 10 minutes or so.

Not moving quickly on these maps is a double-whammy. If you move slowly, the creep builds up to 1500 or more and although I really like it when the creep seems that much more powerful, it takes  long time to wear it down to zero. 

I say all that just so you don't think the people with long times aren't enjoying your maps. In most cases, it takes less real-time to post scores with higher times. So please just keep doing what you're doing  8)

Thanks for the map!  ;D ;D